A deadly place

 

Odd to read that someone who vanished thirty-seven years ago has been discovered on a thawing glacier near the Matterhorn. He failed to return from a hike in September 1986. In June this year climbers crossing the Theodul Glacier “discovered human remains along with several pieces of equipment.”

Even odder to think that it is an area where we’ve skied many times over the last thirty years, though I don’t think we were in any danger of skiing exactly where he died. I hope not, though we must have been pretty close. It seems the melting ice is bringing lots of bodies to the surface. Otzi the iceman was just the first!

We were in Zermatt in January this year and we walked a lot around the village but we did not venture up into the high mountains. Our days of tearing down mountainsides at high speed are well and truly over but I have to say there is nothing quite like it - and the memories of a beautiful and possibly deadly place remain so very clear.